


your ears should be burning

by TrisB



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spy, Captivity, Crack, F/M, dude that was already a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-07
Updated: 2007-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:36:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High-stakes espionage agents Karev and Stevens have licenses to kill.  Among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your ears should be burning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pathstotread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathstotread/gifts).



> Title from Radiohead, ridiculousness from me, influences from many.

"Stevens, what the fuck? Lives are at stake here. Get your head out your ass."

"Get the stick out of yours," she hissed back, quietly as she could. "I know what I'm doing."

It was obvious she didn't. The word "covert" meant nothing to her, the license sat untested between her badge and her breast, and the mission was being compromised every time she set her damn foot out of base and into the world of high-profile mistakes, which, while he couldn't pretend she had made many of, she flirted with so often that being her partner was doubling his blood pressure. At any minute, the house of cards was gonna fall, on him, _hard_.

Fuck her and her fucking "loose cannon" tactics. She had no right to endanger them both needlessly day after day. Karev followed her to the shooting range one day and got her good with a dart of sedative.

⁂

  


"Where are we?" she said the moment the firedoor opened.

Karev snorted. "No."

"What do you mean, _no_?" Stevens spat. "No isn't a place, it's a Bond villain. Where the shit have you taken me?" She enunciated every syllable in an octave below her usual, making her sound like a petulant speech therapist. He wondered if that worked on the people she interrogated.

"No, I'm not going to tell you, because no, I don't go to the trouble of kidnapping my partner in espionage so that I can set her free the moment I check on her since we've all probably learned our lessons anyway. You're not stealthy and you keep ruining shit. I'm not putting up with it. That's your lesson."

Stevens stared at him, didn't stop as he briskly switched a new cooler in for the one she hadn't touched, placed a white book on the box at her bed side, flipped her the bird merrily, and with impressive alacrity hustled out the door and had it closed before she could do anything about it. Only once the door was shut did she scream. "Karev! Karev, you're gonna pay for this! You think _I'm_ breaking regs? What the fuck, Karev?"

"Look at the book," came his muffled reply, half a second before a second door slammed.

 _Section CXIV_ — it was dog eared and highlighted, so she couldn't possibly miss it. Thanks, asshole.

 _In the event of an agent deliberately losing cover or threatening to do so, all licenses may be applied. Agents acknowledge this in signing. Post hoc authorization protocols must be reviewed by committee for infractions that occur during a mission. To obtain prior clearance for intra-agency action, an Intent to Apprehend form (IAA-2) may be completed and filed with a commanding officer. Please see Appendix F for a full list of actionable infractions._

What was there in Appendix F that Karev could possibly pin on her? Bullshit, plain and simple. None of her missions had yet gone seriously wrong, and if sometimes she got a little too close or exposed, it was his job to help her with that, pick up her hypothetical slack. Not turn on her at the first sign of trouble like some bitchass rookie. Seething, Stevens tore to the appendices. They went A, B, C, D, E, G, H, and where F should have been was a pink slip, carbon copied from the original form IAA-2 where the only things Stevens could make out were a check next to the box stating _I do not anticipate fatal action_ , and a wide, looping M at the beginning of the signing officer's signature. Everything else was a blur.

The cooler contained four sandwiches and a jug of lemonade. She drank from the wide lid and rationed the sandwiches: one meatless, one turkey, one pastrami, one corned beef. Wrappers came from the deli closest to base. The only places to be were on her bed or on the pot, and she lay with her back against cheap cotton, wondering what came next. There was not a way out. That one she knew.

Karev set the pattern: day and a half gone, a few minutes back to replace the cooler, then out again, and damn if she wasn't missing him, just because he was a _person_ and not a blank white wall. The deli wrappings changed in each cooler to keep her guessing where they actually were, though she was sure they were within the base itself, since prison cells like this weren't exactly standard architectural features, and with her out of action he must have a workload that was putting him in at least as much danger as she ever did. (Ha.) His state of mind was the only barometer for when she might be able to leave, so she studied it, tried to provoke different reactions, tried to guess what was going on. Complaining about an innocuous choice of meat got her four identical peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that she was sure he had made himself, and a downgrade from lemonade to water. When she perched on the edge of the bed and greeted him cheerily, he rewarded her with books, obviously stolen from her own bookcase at home. Most interesting was the sleeping experiment: she actually had been asleep when a steel clang woke her, and on an impulse Stevens kept her eyes closed and breathing even, stirring only slightly when he opened the fire door.

He seemed to linger that time, though she couldn't imagine what he was doing. As he paused on his way out with the fire door ajar — oh God, every impulse in her wanted to rush that opening but she couldn't, he'd pull away too fast and if she got through to the antechamber he'd just drug or kill her, that wasn't the way out — his fingertips touched her cheek.

"This is what I'm talking about, Stevens. More like this. I knew you could do it, or I would never have bothered."

Which was why, during the following day and a half, she decided to fuck him.

He couldn't be seduced if he didn't want her, and if he wanted her and clearly thought she was improving on whatever standards he could possibly judge her by supine in a prison cell, she'd be out. Once she had her guns and was back on the streets it wouldn't really matter what Karev had done or might try to do in the future, because this time she'd be ready, could pay him back however she wanted, and throw the book in his face with a signature from Bailey, if Montgomery was on his side. This was all she had in mind when he finally appeared, and when instead of passively watching him make his changes to the room, she followed him to the table and asked him about the world outside.

"So, did you guys ever get Echevarria?"

"Us guys?" He smirked. "Please, that was entirely all me."

"Who'd you go through, the daughter? I thought the daughter was the weak link. Besides that shitty security system, of course." She rolled her eyes.

"Seriously," he laughed. "No, the it was the daughter. The system was flawed, but it's not like he didn't know and have goons to make up for it. That was the mistake Yang made; thinking everyone's so much stupider than her that they're really no match for her skills, that —"

"It couldn't possibly be a trap." She met his eyes for a moment. "Yang's dead?"

"I _told_ her — I told you...." Karev looked around the austere space. "I knew it was going to be too dangerous. Yeah, she's dead."

"Oh," said Stevens, honestly hurt to hear it, and kissed him.

It didn't take much to get him to the bed; he seemed to give way to her almost immediately, almost slumping unexpectedly in her arms. His hands, though strong, were tired, and his movements pliable enough for her to set the pace. This was not how she had imagined it. And then inside her, he changed — took control and bit her neck, made her body defer to his. She came with his hand flush to her ribs and right breast, pushing the skin up and off, stretching her impossibly apart. He looked so serious, and behind his eyes the mild expression which accompanied her first kisses still abided.

"I think you were trying to save me, Karev," she rasped against his shoulder, her abdomen still contracting as if to clutch onto sensation already gone. She sat up and pushed his chest down, angling herself at the corner of his pelvis, her face hovering over his.

He shifted her body, again, moved his hand, and she grimaced at the ripeness he now teased at her base, where they two met. "I think I pretty much succeeded, Stevens."

⁂

  


Leaving Stevens in there after everything wasn't fun, especially since she really wasn't shy when it came to leaving marks, affectionate or not. Letting her out now would be a disaster, would undo everything he'd tried to accomplish with her, and bring his own house of cards down as quickly as he'd acquiesced to her mouth. Keeping her now might destroy what he hoped to accomplish with her later, but after being put to risk by her so many times, this was one he was willing to take. Bringing the cooler in next time was going to be ugly, and he knew it, but what could he do? It simply, in the long run, did not matter.

Still, he hoped she'd hate him a little less after she found the cupcake.


End file.
